


Familiar Imposters

by Pearl_Unplanned



Series: Cap_Ironman Bingo 2017 [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cap_Ironman Bingo, Established Relationship, Established Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Hurt Tony Stark, M/M, Minor James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton, Rescue, Skrull(s), Stony Bingo, Team as Family, a little hurt/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 14:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11830776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearl_Unplanned/pseuds/Pearl_Unplanned
Summary: Impostor (noun): a person who pretends to be someone else in order to deceive others.It had been thirteen days and counting since his abduction. If you asked him a few years ago, Tony would’ve thought anyone who believed in aliens was completely insane and just spouting off nonsense. But then Loki from Asgard tried to take over the world with his alien army, and Tony fought alongside Thor, another alien of Asgard.So ‘aliens’ wasn’t exactly a crazy concept anymore. When they came and grabbed Tony and took him off the planet, he knew that getting back to Earth wasn’t going to be easy. Sure, he expected his team to come after him, but…They replaced him.And they were really good actors.





	Familiar Imposters

**Author's Note:**

> O5 on the [Bingo Board (re-uploaded)](https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/pearl_unplanned/76007684/766/766_original.png)

 

            It had been thirteen days and counting since his abduction. If you asked him a few years ago, Tony would’ve thought anyone who believed in aliens was completely insane and just spouting off nonsense. But then Loki from _Asgard_ tried to take over the world with his alien army, and Tony fought alongside Thor, another alien of Asgard.

            So ‘aliens’ wasn’t exactly a crazy concept anymore. When they came and grabbed Tony and took him off the planet, he knew that getting back to Earth wasn’t going to be easy. Sure, he expected his team to come after him, but…

            They replaced him. The aliens— _Skrulls_ , they called themselves—had changed to look exactly like him. Not even medical examinations could tell them apart, because the Skrull now had the same DNA as he did. So there was a good chance that his team wouldn’t even _know_ that he was missing, if the Skrull was acting like him.

            And they were really good actors.

            Tony groaned as he got to work on wrapping up his wounds. At least these aliens weren’t complete savages. After every beating session where they tortured him for information, they made sure to leave him some bandage wraps and a needle with medical stitching so that he could fix himself up.

            As he wrapped up his most recent chest and shoulder wound, Tony tried to make himself more comfortable. It was hard to do that when he was locked up in a metal jail cell and left nothing except for his boxers, but that was okay. He was just a little cold at nighttime, nothing more.

            Thirteen days and no rescue. The real issue was that he wasn’t expecting a rescue, not for quite a while. If the Skrull was able to copy him so well, then no one would even know that he was gone. The worst part was that the _Skrull_ was going to be living _his_ life with _his_ team.

            If that alien even _tried_ to hurt his family, he’d kill them all. Every last alien that got in his way. No one was allowed to hurt and deceive his team, _no one_.

            Tony hated to admit that after thirteen days he was already breaking, but…

            Two nights ago he thought his team had showed up to save him. Two days ago, they’d broken him out of his jail cell, and he’d been so happy. His family was there to save him.

            He made the mistake of calling them his family.

            The Skrulls had been thrilled to learn that Tony was very close to his team. Each ones of his teammates changed back into that green-skinned, pointy eared _alien_ race that he’d grown to hate so much. They beat him as they dragged him back to his cell, taunting him with the voices of his teammates.

            It had been those aliens the whole time. His team wasn’t coming to rescue him, not now. It would be a while before they managed to even figure out that he wasn’t really at the tower.

            But that was okay, because eventually his team would come to get him. Eventually they’d figure out where he was being kept. Eventually he would be home again.

            “Stark,” one of the Skrulls said as it stopped next to his cell. “Not a word from you tonight. And cover your reactor.”

            Tony silently glared at the alien as he wrapped the bandages around his arc reactor, watching as the room fell dark again. The only thing that he could see was the bright white grin of the alien before he walked away and melted into the shadows.

            Sighing, Tony laid down on the cold, hard floor again. Tomorrow marked two weeks. If he was being honest, it would probably take a week or two to track him down in the first place. But they had to know that he was a fake first.

            That would take some time.

 

            The sound of footsteps woke Tony, who barely managed to hold back an annoyed groan. Of course the Skrulls weren’t going to actually let him sleep through the night, there were only a few rare nights when that actually happened. Instead of bothering to get up, because he knew that they’d just drag him out of the cell anyway, Tony chose to just lay there and wait for the inevitable.

            The quiet footsteps came running over to his jail cell and stopped. A whispered voice asked, “Tony? Oh my God, Tony, is that you?”

            “Not this again,” Tony growled, rolling over so that he could once more come face to face with the super concerned face of Steve Rogers. “What do you want this time?”

            “What are you talking about? Tony, we’re here to get you out. Just hold on,” not-Steve said frantically, taking his well-crafted shield off the strap on his back. Not-Steve used the shield to break the lock off of the door—at least they were changing it up. Last time not-Steve had managed to ‘get the key away from the guard’ and just unlock the door before not-Bruce and not-Clint helped him out of the cell.

            “That’s new,” Tony said, scooting back against the wall. Crossing his arms he watched the impostor pull the heavy metal door open before he rushed in.

            “Tony, come on, we can’t be here for long. You’re hurt!” not-Steve gasped when he noticed the bandages that Tony had wrapped around himself and the bruises and cuts on his face. “Tony, God, what did they do to you? Let me just—I’ll carry you.”

            “Don’t you _dare_ pick me up,” Tony said, trying to scoot as far away from the shapeshifter as he could. Those things touched him enough already, when they beat him and cut him and… And he didn’t need one pretending to be Steve, carrying him out to ‘safety.’

            “Tony, darling, what did they do to you? I swear, I’m not one of them, I’m not here to hurt you,” the Skrull said, keeping his hands up as he slowly inched towards Tony. “I don’t know what they might’ve done, but I can promise you that I’m here to get you out. We knocked out a couple of those shapeshifting freaks on the way over here, but I _have_ to get you out before any more of them know I’m here. The rest of the team is guarding the way back over to the ship.”

            “I’m not falling for it again,” Tony said stubbornly, metaphorically putting his foot down. At least, he _would’ve_ metaphorically put his foot down had the impostor not just reached his hand out to gently cup Tony’s cheek.

            “I’m sorry that they did something and they used my face to do it, Tony, but you _have_ to believe me that I’m only here to get you out,” the man said. It was getting harder and harder to insist that it was an impostor. He was able to copy Steve too well. Had they replaced Steve, too? Had they been stalking Steve like they’d been stalking him?

            “I can’t go through that again, I just _can’t_ ,” he whispered. It had taken thirteen days to break him. Silent tears ran down Tony’s face. “Not after last time.”

            “You won’t ever need to again, I swear,” the blond said, gently gathering Tony up in his arms. “When I get you home, I’m locking you away in our room and I’m never letting you out.”

            “You know about our room now? Great, what else have I said?” Tony mumbled, though he had to admit, at least this fake Steve was nicely toned. “Thought I kept all the personal information out of it. Hey, Mr. Skrull? When you drag me back to the cell again, could you at _least_ go easy on throwing me down? My ribs hurt.”

            “Darling, I’m _so_ sorry they did this,” the man whispered, and Tony flinched away when he tried to press a kiss to his forehead. No way was he letting an _impostor_ kiss him. “I’m get you home, and that’s that. Understood?”

            Tony didn’t complain. He was going to get roughed up whether he liked it or not, so there wasn’t really a reason to complain about it. He’d be dealing with this for _months_ , probably. Would they do this every couple of nights? Would he have to see his teammates faces again and again as the Skrulls continued to beat him down?

            Wonderful. Wouldn’t this just be wonderful.

            As the Skrull lifted him up ever so gingerly and started carrying him out of the room, Tony let himself lean against the alien’s chest. After all, if he was going to be ‘rescued,’ then he was going to at least enjoy being carried around. At least he got to see Steve’s face again.

            As the impostor carried him out of the jail cell and down the hallway, Tony wasn’t at all surprised to see not-Bruce just down the hallway when they rounded the corner. When not-Bruce spotted _them_ , though, he came running over.

            “Tony! Tony, how do you feel? Are you in any pain—I’ve got medicine on the ship, if you need _anything_ just let me know what’s hurting,” not-Bruce said, putting a gentle hand on Tony’s face. “I’m going to get you patched up, okay Tony?”

            “He thinks we’re… what did you call them, Tony, Skrulls? Bruce, he thinks we’re the _aliens_ ,” not-Steve said. “They’ve done this before—they used our faces to hurt him.”

            Tony just rolled his eyes. “Okay, big guy, you can let me walk myself out of here from now on. Don’t act like you don’t know what you did.”

            “Tony, we’re not…” not-Bruce stopped. “You’re not going to believe that. You have no reason to believe that. How can I prove it to you…?”

            “On our first _official_ date,” the blond shapeshifter said quietly as he placed Tony down so that he could let him stand on his own two feet, “…we went to this little cupcake store because you liked the muffins that they baked, not the cupcakes. The first date we went on, though, was back before I realized that we were dating… It was when you took me around the park and got me to try out the local food, since I hadn’t been there yet. You insisted that I try the hot dogs.”

            Tony stared at him. There was _no way_ that he’d said any of that to the Skrulls. In fact, he was pretty sure that the Skrulls didn’t even know that he and Steve were dating. They’d never tried to use it against him, so he just figured they didn’t know. It wasn’t like it was public knowledge just yet. Tony wasn’t planning on announcing it until they’d been dating for, like, two years or something.

            “You believe me,” he whispered, a smile crossing his face. “You actually believe me this time!”

            “There’s _no way_ that you guys were able to track me down so quickly,” Tony said, shaking his head. No, this was just another trick. He must’ve… he must’ve said something about dating Steve…

            “With S.H.I.E.L.D.’s resources it only took a week to find where the spaceship was,” maybe-impostor-Bruce spoke up. “The hard part was getting the alien to talk. We had to get S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel to interrogate because… it was hard to force him to talk when he had your face, Tony. It’s longer than anyone would’ve wanted, but we’re here now—we’re bringing you home.”

            “He looks and sounds identical to me,” Tony said, crossing his arms. “How’d you know it wasn’t me?”

            “He didn’t act like you. He acted like… like what the media portrayed you to be,” maybe-Steve said. “He didn’t even know that we share a bedroom, or that we’ve been dating. I mean—we only recently told the team, but _he_ should’ve known that.”

            “I had a feeling that he wouldn’t have known,” Tony mumbled, looking back and forth between the two. “I can’t trust _anyone_ —”

            “When you originally brought me back to the tower, we spent the first three days locked in the lab,” maybe-Bruce spoke up. “We were trying to figure out how to make pants for the Other Guy because you said that you didn’t want a lawsuit because either he’s running around naked smashing stuff or I’m waking up somewhere where there could be civilians, but I knew that it was because you wanted to make things easier for me. We both loosened up to one another after the second straight day of working through designs and synthesizing new materials when you told me about your plans on bringing the Avengers back to the tower. That was the first time you ever told me—or _anyone_ , in your words—about your crush on Steve.”

            Tony bit his lip. No one knew about that—Bruce had never spoken a word of those days in the lab to anyone, until now, and neither had he. And the dating thing—he _knew_ that he kept that a secret. Tony flung himself into Steve’s arms, pressing his face to the man’s chest.

            “Tony,” Steve whispered, holding him tightly. The sob that he’d been forced to hold back ever since he’d been kidnapped finally escaped him as Tony pressed his face against his lover.

            “I missed you guys,” Tony whispered, for the first time in two weeks feeling even remotely safe. His team _did_ come for him. “A-are you sure that everyone… I _have_ to know that everyone is really… is really who they say they are.”

            “They are,” Steve promised. “I’ll get them to prove it to you, don’t worry. We just need to go, _now,_ before they know I’ve got you.”

            Tony quickly nodded and let Bruce and Steve lead him down a couple more hallways. He had no idea how this ship worked, as every time he’d tried to escape, he just got beaten and tortured again. His teammates knew where they were going, they had to know, because Tony was putting all of his shaky trust in them.

            After all, trusting anyone and anything was difficult when the shapeshifters could look like anyone.

            “Tony!” And once more, another teammate came running over, putting his arrows back into a holster before he wrapped Tony up in a hug.

            “Clint,” he greeted, though he was still a bit on edge. After all, this man looked like Clint, and his teammates—the ones he _knew_ were his family—trusted him, but… he _needed_ to know. He _needed_ to make sure.

            “Clint, I need you to tell Tony something that only the two of you know, okay? Whatever you can think of, but make sure that no one else knows about it,” Steve said, keeping a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “Okay? The aliens were using our faces to hurt him.”

            The archer was watching him with wide eyes, like he was shocked at the Skrulls would actually do something like shapeshift to look like them while they hurt Tony. His shocked look turned to concentration before he frowned.

            “Okay, something serious that I’ve only ever talked to you about… looks like everyone’s gonna know now,” Clint mumbled. “So remember the first time that the two of us went out drinking together and we ended up down in your workshop? We were both pretty drunk by that point in time, and you were showing me some designs you made for new arrows. I was _so_ shocked that you’d even consider making me new types of arrows, and we had a long discussion about the fact that… that I didn’t think that I was good enough to be on a team like the Avengers, because all of you are just so… _super_ and I’m just a normal guy. And then you gave me a pep talk on how incredible I am with archery and all sorts of weapons and you asked me to help you train you because you felt like you didn’t have enough fighting experience to be an Avenger…”

            Tony pulled Clint into a tight hug. “Thank you for being yourself and not one of them.”

            “I never knew that you thought you weren’t good enough to be an Avenger,” Steve said, looking shocked. “Clint, you’ve always been good enough to be an Avenger.”

            “I know, Tony told me,” he said with a grin, though he looked happy to be hearing it from more than just one person. “Tasha and Bucky are over at the ship waiting for us to get back. We’ve got to go—I, uh, had to take down a couple of those aliens while I was waiting, so they’ve got to be pretty pissed by now.”

            Tony nodded. “They get really angry, really quickly. And they’ve all got strength that rival’s a super-soldier, and they can look like _anyone_ —their face, their voice… their DNA. They become _identical_.”

            “But they don’t act that way,” Steve said quickly. “I was instantly suspicious, and so when I asked the impostor if he remembered the fact that he and Bruce had been dating for the past four months, and if he remembered that the anniversary was tonight… he said that it must’ve slipped his mind, and asked me for dinner suggestions… and I told him that he just needed to make sure he didn’t take Bruce somewhere where they served seafood because of how allergic Bruce was. He agreed not to right away and thanked me for being such a good friend—I dragged him off to an interrogation room directly after that. He should’ve known that everything I said was a lie.”

            “Those things are freaky looking,” Clint said, shuddering. He glanced over at Bruce. “Nothing wrong with green, though. Green is cool.”

            Bruce rolled his eyes as he helped Tony over towards the spaceship, the moment that Clint saw Bucky, he raced over to the other super-solder and whispered something to him. Tony just leaned against Steve and relished in the fact that there _was_ a spaceship this time.

            They _were_ bringing him home. Tony froze, though, when Bucky pulled out a gun, aimed and fired it all within an instant. Tony knew that his eyes probably made him look like a deer caught in the headlights. Well, until he realized that the gun was pointed at something behind them.

            Turning around, he was shocked to see what looked like _Bucky_ standing there with a bullet through his chest. As the man collapsed to his knees, though, his skin started turning green until he looked like all those other Skrulls.

            “Stark, come ‘ere,” probably-Bucky said, waving him over. Tony was a bit nervous, but Bruce and Steve led him over.

            “Clint said you won’t come home until you know that I’m me and not an alien,” he said. “So I’ve gotta come up with something that only the two of us know.” Bucky gestured off to the side for a second, and Steve raised an eyebrow at him.

            Tony patted his arm before he followed Bucky. If Clint trusted him right now, then he was going to trust him.

            “I talk with Clint about a lot of stuff… but I think that one of the last things we discussed that he didn’t get to hear about was when you were redesigning the arm, and I was down in the lab with you, and I was making a bunch of suggestions about _what_ you should put in the arm to make it more useful,” Bucky said as quietly as he could, and Tony grinned because he knew exactly where Bucky was going with this one. “…and you suggested that I might as well have a bit of fun with it, so there were some, uh, _enhancements_ that you wanted to add. Ones that Clint might enjoy. Do I have to spell it out or do you think I’m lying?”

            “I know you’re telling the truth,” Tony laughed, leaning against Bucky. “Y’know, you were the one person who they weren’t sure what to do with. They barely knew that you existed at the tower, and they _definitely_ didn’t know what your arm looked like after I upgraded it.”

            “Glad to know that just _seeing_ my arm would’ve been enough,” Bucky muttered, though he was smiling now. “It’s good to have you back, Tony. Now that I see what they did to you, I definitely don’t feel bad about the number of aliens I’ve killed. Now—you need to be on that ship where Bruce can patch you up. At least then I know we can get out of here.”

            Tony nodded and hurried over to Steve, taking his hand. “Time to go home, okay?”

            “Of course,” Steve said, leading him into the spaceship. The moment he was inside, Bucky shut the doors behind them and stayed guard there. Steve and Bruce tried to lead Tony over to what he guessed was the medical center of the spaceship, but he wasn’t about to go.

            There was still someone that he needed to see. He hurried after Clint to the front of the ship. When Clint took his place as co-pilot, the other co-pilot stood up.

            _“Tony, kitten, when you get back to the tower I am not letting you out of my sight,”_ Natasha spoke to him in Russian. _“Understood?”_

_“Of course my spider,”_ Tony replied back in Russian. The moment he spoke, he got a lot of strange looks from his teammates. “What? Tasha taught me Russian.”

            “Oh, so you believe her without an interrogation? Not fair,” Clint muttered.

            “Tasha taught me Russian. No one else _knew_ that,” Tony pointed out, giving her a quick hug before he let Steve and Bruce drag him off to the medical room.

            “Be prepared,” Bucky shouted. “We’ve got company!”

            “We’re getting _out_ of here,” Clint called back.

            Tony gripped Steve’s arm tightly when the ship took off, flinching horribly when the ship started moving. He couldn’t help it. Last time he was on a spaceship it was because he was being kidnapped. He couldn’t help the shiver that shook his body so badly.

            “It’s okay,” Steve whispered, gripping him tightly. Steve’s comforting arms wrapped around him and grounded him, letting him know that this was _Steve_ not an _alien_. This was Steve. Steve protected him. Steve, who knew right away that the impostor wasn’t him.

            “Tony… did they mess with your arc reactor? Were they… did they try to remove it, or break it?” Bruce asked quietly as he wrapped a blanket around Tony’s shoulders.

            “No… they just didn’t like that it glowed. I warned them about taking it out… so they just made me wrap it up to block out the light,” Tony mumbled, smiling as he pulled the blanket tighter around him. “It was really cold at night, thanks. Don’t know why they took my clothes, but… made it easier for them to try to break me, I guess.”

            “They didn’t break you though—you’re strong, Tony. And we’ll always be there to help you,” Steve promised, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Just sit still while Bruce checks your wounds, okay?”

            He nodded, not letting go of Steve’s hand, though. “I refused to tell them about my family… I refused to say anything that would help them hurt you guys.”

            “We’re just glad you’re safe,” Steve said, and Tony couldn’t hold back his grin when his lover kissed his lips. Tony hummed, not even flinching as Bruce checked over his wounds. Apparently he’d done quite a good job at stitching them up.

            “I’m going to get some x-rays of your chest when we get back, okay? I trust you when you say that they didn’t touch the reactor, but you’ve still got quite a lot of bruises and I’m worried about internal damage,” Bruce said. He gestured to a bed, and Tony sighed.

            “I’m not _that_ hurt, Bruce,” Tony said, grinning. He didn’t fight with Steve, though, when the super-soldier led him over to the bed.

            “How about this? You lie down on the bed for a while, and I’ll keep you company,” Steve murmured, a sly grin on his lips.

            Bruce seemed to understand what he was suggesting as he politely excused himself from the room. Tony gingerly climbed up onto the bed and stretched out, giving his super-soldier the best puppy-dog eyes he could. Steve just chuckled and climbed up onto the bed, curling around him while making sure not to hurt him.

            “I’ve missed you so much,” Tony whispered, pressing his face against his lover’s chest. “I thought that it would be months before I was going to go home. I thought that I was going to be beaten and locked away for _months_ , Steve, and that I wasn’t going to see my family…”

            He’d counted every day, every hour, waiting and hoping and praying and _finally_ he was able to go home. He couldn’t be more thankful than he was right now.

            “I never would’ve left you there,” Steve whispered, gently stroking the injured man’s face. “I just wish that it wouldn’t have taken so long to break that Skrull into telling us where you were…” He pressed a kiss to the top of Tony’s head. “But we did, and now you’re coming home.”

            “We need to find a way to tell Skrulls apart from normal people… I don’t want this ever happening again, to _anyone_ ,” Tony whispered. The bed felt like Heaven after sleeping on the metal floor for two weeks, but Steve definitely made a better bed than the mattress did. “You’re so warm… just don’t move, okay? Just hold me.”

            “I can do that,” Steve promised. “I don’t know why they took you, Tony, but I’m so glad you’re alive. I was worried that they… that they got rid of you. That’s what your doppelganger told me when I was interrogating him. He told me they’d already killed you, but… I knew he was lying.”

            The Skrulls had been lying to everyone—to him, telling him that his team hadn’t even figured out that he was replaced, to his team, telling them that he was already dead.

            “S.H.I.E.L.D. thinks we’re going to have an invasion on our hands,” Steve said. When Tony pressed the side of his head against Steve’s chest, he could hear the super-soldier’s strong heartbeat. It was comforting. “Like… a _worldwide invasion_ , Tony.”

            “We’ll be prepared,” Tony promised, looking his lover right in the eye. “I love you, Steve. We’ll make it through this, we’ll make it through an invasion, and we’ll make it through everything. Don’t worry.”

            The super-soldier smiled and nodded. “Get some rest. We’ll be home soon, and when we do get back… I’m getting some food for you, and then as much as I want to lock you away in our bedroom, there’s no way that the team is letting me have you to myself for quite a while.”

            “It’s a good thing that I don’t mind having our family around,” Tony mumbled, closing his eyes as he let himself relax in Steve’s arms.

            He was safe, his teammates were really themselves and not aliens, and he was on his way back to the tower. Life couldn’t have been better in that moment. If an invasion came next, they’d be prepared, as long as they were all together, as a family. He slowly drifted off to the sound of Steve’s beating, _human_ heart.

**Author's Note:**

> If I was really an evil author I would’ve added this to the end after a time skip:
> 
> A grin crossed his face as he watched his team, glad to be at the tower. There was one thing that he’d failed to mention to the team: it had only taken eleven days to break Tony Stark, not thirteen. Eleven days… and now that _they_ knew everything, Earth would never know what hit them.


End file.
